


the wicked things we've said

by kerrykins



Category: Sharp Objects (TV)
Genre: Codependency, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Unhealthy Relationships (???)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-17 21:48:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21516985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerrykins/pseuds/kerrykins
Summary: happy birthgay queen you're amazing and talented and kind and you deserve the entire world i'm sorry this is so short! patty clarkson eyebrow warriors and freeadora nation rise up <3
Relationships: Adora Crellin/Jackie O'Neill
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	the wicked things we've said

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leiaorgayna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiaorgayna/gifts).



> happy birthgay queen you're amazing and talented and kind and you deserve the entire world i'm sorry this is so short! patty clarkson eyebrow warriors and freeadora nation rise up <3

_ There's a monster growing in our heads _

_ Raised up on the wicked things we've said _

_ There's a mountain higher than we knew _

_ It's high but such a bitter view _

— The Cardigans

Jackie took up the chair in front of the glass pane and removed the phone from its hook.

“Why are you here? Haven’t you done enough?” Adora’s voice came through the speaker, strained and feeble, just a wisp away from being nothing. Her eyes were still bleary from whatever conversation she’d had earlier with Amma, her eyelids raw and red.

“I didn’t do anything,” Jackie said, even though she knew there wasn’t much point in telling Adora so. “Just saying hi.”

Adora rolled her eyes, though her expression slackened marginally. “You know, you’re the only one that’s bothered to stop by other than the girls. Not even Alan has seen me yet.” She looked utterly miserable and for one crazy second, Jackie felt sorry for her.

“I know.”

Adora’s lips formed a thin line of displeasure.

“Do you remember,” Jackie began, “our senior homecoming?” Adora, who was pulling at her eyelashes, tucked her hand back into her lap. Though she didn’t look up at Jackie, she was clearly listening.

“And you were homecoming queen, and that quarterback asked you out? You wore that poofy pink dress and all dolled up like some Barbie. So pretty.”

“My mother didn’t want me to go, so after dinner I had to gun it down the stairs and meet you outside,” Adora interrupted dryly, her lips quirked. “Then we ran all the way to your house.”

As hazy as the memory was, Jackie remembered that part. Adora’s hand in hers, cool and clingy as they raced across the Preaker lawn and then downtown. “Yep. And when I was helping you get ready I burned my hand with the damn curling iron. You thought it was funny and wouldn’t stop laughing, even when I was doing your makeup.”

“But it  _ was  _ funny.”

“Mm, sure.” Jackie paused a moment, to find the right way to tell this next part. “We were so young then, it doesn't even feel real. You ever get that way sometimes, about things from then?” When Adora supplied no response, Jackie smiled before continuing. “You were beautiful. I know when you walked in every boy had his eyes on you.”

“Stop that,” Adora scolded, in that way of hers that encouraged the opposite. So Jackie leaned forward and kept talking.

_____

Adora got away with murder. Not even two weeks in prison and she was back in Wind Gap, though Amma and Camille were already gone.

Jackie expected herself to be upset, self-righteously furious. She wasn’t. Despite everything, she cared about Adora and wanted her nearby. It was unhealthy and unrequited; Jackie didn’t care.

Alan had fled Wind Gap in disgrace, headed back to whatever no-name place he’d come from. Jackie was grateful for such small mercies. She’d never liked Alan, with his record labels and watered-down alcohol. A coward and a pervert, he’d only enabled Adora’s sickness to spread and take root in the children. Jackie knew that she too was a coward, but Alan’s meekness repulsed her all the same.

Jackie was the one to drive Adora back home and open the door for her. The blue bottles of poison had been confiscated by order of the local authorities as evidence, though the house still had an arsenic, unwelcoming quality to it. The pills were gone, but too many little girls have suffered within these walls for it to ever feel safe. Jackie glanced at Adora, who was staring up at the dark staircase with an unreadable expression.

“Welcome home,” Jackie said, though it sounded cruelly ironic to her own ears.

_____

Jackie made the decision to stay with Adora for awhile. It was unwise and even dangerous, but she needed to do this. Was it out of some misguided sense of devotion, or another opportunity taken to tend to Adora? She didn’t know which one it was. The alcohol made it impossible to think. She preferred it that way.

There wasn’t much for Jackie to do, even though Gayla had been let go. The house was spotless as ever and Adora refused to let anyone touch her garden, so Jackie walked down to the hog farm every few days to ensure things were running smoothly. Adora made herself scarce, always locked in her bedroom or outside trimming her roses. It was as though she wanted to disappear. Jackie struggled to say something more to her than the occasional question after her well-being, to which Adora always answered blandly. So maybe Jackie had been hypocritical to call Alan pathetic.

A restless couple of hours in what had once been Alan’s bed brought Jackie downstairs for a drink. She descended the long staircase, her head spinning from a hangover. A light was on in the kitchen and Adora was standing at the counter. Under the single fluorescent bulb, her skin was too pale, nearly translucent. She was beautiful in a ghostly way, as if she was merely light and shadow in the form of an apparition.

Without looking at her, Adora poured a shot of whiskey and slid it across the table to Jackie. They drank together, just a few feet apart, yet Jackie had never felt more alone.

But then Adora spoke. “Why are you here? I don’t need you.” She seemed more confused than anything else, though her voice was still chilly.

“Then tell me to leave,” Jackie said simply, expecting Adora to do just that. She’d done it before. Jackie could take it.

Instead, Adora stared at her silently, as if at a loss for words. Then she moved past Jackie and made her way up the stairs. Jackie watched her go in a daze, hoping her face didn’t betray her shock.

____

When it was noon the next day, Jackie finally dragged herself down to the hog farm. She walked down the straight road, the smell of manure and sweat and blood stretching on for miles. It was unthinkable that Adora was the one managing such a dirty business, the Adora Crellin who wore lace and poisoned her children with silver spoons and tidy hands.

The beefy man at the slaughterhouse seemed more interested in eying Jackie’s ass than answering the questions she had about operations. She didn’t bother reprimanding him as she wanted it to be over with as soon as possible. Jackie found Adora lounging on the veranda when she got back, a whiskey sour in hand and sunglasses perched on the bridge of her nose. Neither of them acknowledged each other as Jackie trudged inside the house.

Adora soon abandoned her place at the porch in favour of watching Jackie cook dinner, which gave her a prickling sense of unease, but she carried on nonetheless. Jackie wasn’t a very skilled cook but both of them had to eat, and the casseroles and hams dropped off by those sympathetic to Adora’s predicament were running out. The days of freeadora.org were but a distant memory now, the plethora of fair-weather friends slowly fading in the wake of Adora’s recent fall from grace. Only Jackie was stupid enough to stick around.

Adora hardly touched her food, which didn’t surprise Jackie, but what did take her back was what Adora said afterwards.

“I’ll run you a bath, I can still smell those pigs on you.” Adora was out of her seat before she even finished speaking, with a poise that suggested she’d planned this, already knowing what Jackie’s answer would be.

Jackie wondered if it was a good sign that Adora’s caretaking habits were resurfacing. Probably not. “Sure.” Adora didn’t take her by the hand or anything of the sort, just nodded and headed upstairs. The tap squeaked when Adora turned it, water lapping at porcelain while the two women waited for it to fill the tub. Jackie felt Adora’s fingers flutter at her back, undoing the fastenings that sent her dress pooling around her feet.

Jackie should have been nervous, but between Adora’s touch and the warmth of the water that beckoned her, she knew no emotion but peace. Adora watched her settle into the tub, her gaze slightly unnerving in the way it traced over every curve of Jackie’s bare body, leaving her feeling raw.

When Jackie reached for the damp rag hanging over the side of the tub, Adora delicately moved her back. “Let me do it.” She placed a hand on Jackie’s shoulder, her grip resolute.

“You’re the only one that does what I want,” Adora said as she scrubbed Jackie’s back. “You let me take care of you.”

  
_ No, _ Jackie thought.  _ No, it’s the other way around. It’s all for you.  _ But she’d let Adora believe what she wanted, shutting her eyes and trying to engrain everything about this moment into her mind.


End file.
